Friday, September 28, 2012

CLASH of EAGLES Sample Chapter

While the manuscript is still a few weeks from completion here's something to keep you in the mood. The chapter's main character is an older Czech who has been conscripted into Heydrich's forces.

CHAPTER
14

...Time
to Cry

Near Abersfeld, 15 Kilometers North-East of
Schweinfurt

25 November 1940

Mired in silence the
column with Johan Maiczek and the Faller boys marched on through
Franconia. The sense of elation and camaraderie they all had felt
after the first days of battle had evaporated after they had
committed their gruesome work as executioners. During daytime in it's
stead now lingered a feeling of numbness. At night they all went
through fitful bouts of sleep filled with nightmares of the past and
of what the future might bring. The levied Czech soldier saw it when
he awoke from his own nightmares – or when he had to take a leak
during the night. After all he was in his mid-forties. It was strange
how the mundane or even the profane sometimes had its uses. For when
he was awake he could see who slept safe and sound. It was these men
he swore to keep an eye on. You didn't just run around executing
people and then go for a toddler's slumber. He had seen that type of
men in the trenches of the Great War: the killers, the sadists, the
men in whose chests war had awoken the beast and who would put a
bayonet through your belly with a smile on their faces. Every army,
every society had them. Johan Maiczek just wasn't very keen to be
near
them.

At the head of their
company rode their commander, black in polished black, his cape
flapping in the wind, his big white stallion dancing forward rather
than trotting. The tall animal was brimming with energy, white mist
erupting from its nostrils whenever it snorted contemptuously at the
slow pace its rider forced it into. It didn't even deign to look at
the old mare that trotted after it, half a horse's length to its
right.

In Johan's eyes the
rider was a shallow, twisted copy of their commanding officer, a bit
of a Sancho Panza to their Don Quichote. Hans Reimann was a new
addition to their unit, in equal parts watchdog over them and lapdog
to their commander. Gaunt, with a hawkish nose and fiery eyes behind
thin-rimmed glasses he was the new Reichsführer's
answer to his forces' supposed timid conduct against the enemy. As
SS-Führungsoffizier
his task was to assure they followed their orders to the letter and
with the right amount of ideological fervor, and he had begun his
duties of bringing 'his flock' back to the path of righteousness
rounding on a man he thought making disparaging remarks about him
with a riding crop. Reimann had only stopped when the unlucky son of
a bitch's hands and face were a complete ruin. The man had lost an
eye, too. He'd be crippled for the rest of his life.

But that wasn't even
what had disgusted and frightened Johan, no. It had been their
'commissar's' face. Reimann's eyes had been blazing with laughter and
excitement, and he had smiled throughout the whole ordeal.

Despite the pearls of
sweat on his forehead from their brisk marching pace the memory sent
shivers down his spine.

Before them the land
opened up as they began to leave the forest with its gray-barked
trees and thick, thorny underbrush. Barren farmland covered beneath a
thin layer of snow stretched from east to west for miles ahead. Ahead
of them atop a gently-sloped low hill stood a typical Franconian
village. A few dozen half-timbered houses and barns with high, long
red-tiled roofs were crowded around an old church with a square,
squat bell tower with the road the soldiers marched on cutting the
settlement in half. White bedsheets and tablecloths flew in the
breeze, hanging from windows and a flagpole opposite the church.

It was quite an
idyllic sight. Maybe they could stop there and have lunch, Johan
thought hopefully. He certainly wouldn't mind a cup of hot coffee.
Sometimes villagers and townsfolk offered them some on their own but
he would freely buy a cup with a few pennies if-

A shot cracked, its
echo thundering across the barren fields and meadows. Like one man
the whole formation hit the ground, the flanks diving for the
roadside ditches. Johan found himself next to young Hermann in the
right side ditch. His knees and chest ached from the plunge onto the
hard ground, but it undoubtedly was better to be inconvenienced than
dead. Yanking his Mauser carbine free he slowly pushed his head over
the mound of frozen earth to sneak a peek at whoever had just shot at
them. Fear pumped adrenalin through his body.

Hermann Faller crawled
next to him, his eyes widened in equal parts by fear and excitement.
His carbine shook in his small hands. He hissed, “Where's the
shooter?”

Johan rolled his eyes.
“Courage's got nothing to do with it,” he growled. “You've got
no idea where the shot came from and who's done the shooting.
Discretion's the better part of valor, boy.”

The Sudetengerman
teenager had an angry reply on his lips but the wild neigh of a horse
drowned it out.

The white stallion
reared up, almost unhorsing its rider, then toddled around the the
paved road's surface. It shook its head violently as if to ward off
some pesky fly and rolled its eyes. They were glazed. Its breath was
ragged, and reddish foam seeped from the corners of its mouth. Dark
blood pumped from a hole in its chest, running down its flanks and
turning its white fur into a maze of crimson streams.

The animal looked more
disoriented and angry than in pain. Nonetheless, its rider struggled
to stay in saddle as his mount refused to obey his commands any
longer. For a few moments the great white stallion just trotted
aimlessly from one side of the road to another, its rider cursing the
animal. Then its hind legs gave in. With a pained neigh and a shocked
yell of the officer on its back the heavy horse collapsed to the cold
ground below.

Instinctively some men
jumped up to help their commander and pulled him out from under his
mount. From the look upon his face the man felt surprised and maybe a
bit embarrassed, but for the first time Johan remembered he heard him
utter the words 'Thank you'.

No second shot whipped
through the wintry countryside despite ample time and opportunity to
fell a man. Slowly, cautiously, the soldiers began to rise, some
standing, some kneeling.

The horse lay on the
ground, snorting and shuddering as a pool of blood spread out under
its chest.

Reimann's mare had
gotten the scent of the blood pumping form the white stallion's
covered flank. The otherwise so demure animal balked at its wounded
companion, white steamy breath snorting from its nostrils as it
neighed in fear. It defied the angry commands of its rider, danced
backwards and jumped across the roadside ditch, galloping of over the
frozen field with a wide-eyed SS-Führungsoffizier
on its back.

The soldiers ignored
Reimann's plight. Most of them didn't like the man, and Johan thought
the few who didn't mind him were so cold-blooded they wouldn't lose
any sleep if he broke his neck falling off his mount.

Their commander had
knelt down besides his wounded stallion and taken the animal's large
head into his hands and lap, disregarding the blood that stained his
usually so immaculate uniform and cloak. He gently caressed the
stallion's face. It was a strange sight. In fact it was the first
time Johan had ever seen something like compassion in the man's face.
The Hauptsturmführer1
hushed the raggedly breathing horse and softly let go of its head.
Slowly rising back to his feet again he gave the horse a last long
regretful look – then pulled his Luger pistol in one fluid motion
and put two bullets into the animal's head. When he looked up again
his face had changed to a mask of white hot anger.

“Get back into
formation you maggots. I want that shooter dragged form that village.
I want that man found. Untersturmführer2
Reimann, get your damn horse under control and fall in! On the
double!”

The sign at the edge
of the village read 'Abersfeld'. The streets were deserted except for
a few cats and dogs that hurried away when their unit stormed up the
road towards the church, their guns at the ready, their eyes on the
windows and doors around them. You didn't have to be an officer to
realize that places like this were ideal for an ambush. But again the
guns remained silent. No shots cracked, no men fell. Hell, as far as
Johan could tell there was no proof the shot had even come from
somewhere within Abersfeld!

But that didn't seem
to matter to their commander. Reimann - their watchdog – had closed
up to them again and was eager to hover over the Hauptsturmführer.
The tall, broad-shouldered ignored the mounted subordinate officer
and gazed across the village square with cold, angry eyes. He pulled
a pocket watch from his coat. “Someone from this village has fired
on the legitimate forces of Fatherland and people! You have two
minutes to present the culprit – or we will come and get him!”
His voice bellowed through the empty streets.

The seconds passed
with agonizing tardiness. Faces of men, women and children appeared
behind the windows surrounding the village square. Even at the
distance Johan could see they were scared. As if to underline the end
of their commander's ultimatum the bell in the church's bell tower
began to strike noon. When the last gong had echoed through the
streets and died down a door on the opposite end of the square opened
and a stocky older man in an ill-fitting suit began to walk briskly
towards them, his hands raised and a white handkerchief flapping in
one. He was huffing and puffing when he came to a halt opposite
Reimann and their caped commanding officer.

“I'm the mayor of
Abersfeld,” he explained. “We are a peaceful and loyal community,
good sir. We're farmers and craftsmen, not soldiers or
revolutionaries. We don't understand politics, and we don't want no
part in them either.” He took a deep breath and shook himself, his
double chin wobbling with the movement. “I beg you. These are good
people. Please believe me: nobody here would've been foolish enough
to attack you! As such, I can't give up a shooter because I don't
have a shooter to give to you!”

“Someone
from your damned village tried to kill me, and I swear to you I'll
get that son of a bitch. Someone will pay for this cowardly attack.
Hand me the shooter and we'll deal with him. That, or face the
consequences.” The commander's voice was an impatient growl.

“Would if I could,
but I don't know who shot at you!” the mayor wrung his hands.
“Please, sir, we are all loyal Germans here. Never would-”

“Loyal Germans?”
Reimann's sneering voice cut the villager off. “You proclaim to be
loyal members of the Reich and yet wherever I look I cannot find a
single true German flag flying over your pathetic excuse for a
village! Is this how your people proclaim your allegiance? Or maybe
that's just as fickle as a piece of cloth in the wind, too?” the
political watchdog scoffed and pointed at his swastika armband. “A
true German National Socialist would stand by these colors.”

With shaking hands the
mayor produced a lapel pin showing a swastika from the insides of his
worn-out suit. “But I'm a member of the party myself,” he
protested weakly.

“Oh, really?”
Reimann's voice dripped with sarcasm as his hands encompassed the
whole village square with a wide gesture. “Then why can't we see
any signs of that with your village? Isn't that your responsibility
as the party's local leader: to assure steadfast support for our
creed and for our Führer? Or are you just a member out of
convenience: a fair weather party comrade?” He pulled his mare
around and faced the commander. “Hauptsturmführer,
I'd like nothing more than to lash this man in front of this whole
pitiful village for being a turncoat and a coward,” Reimann
exclaimed loud enough for everyone living close to the village square
to hear. The man paled and staggered back a few feet, but some of the
unit's soldiers blocked his way. “But regardless of what I may
want: his village is flying the white flag, and yet a cowardly
attempt of your life was made from one of its inhabitants. An
inhabitant this man continues to shield. That makes him a traitor.
That makes all who keep silent here traitors to our cause, to the
Reichsführer,
and to us, his loyal forces!”

“What do you
suggest, SS-Führungsoffizier?”
The commander's voice was almost soft, but his eyes kept the
frightened mayor riveted to the spot.

“We have to make an
example of these traitors, Hauptsturmführer.
They harbor a partisan, maybe a Jew or a Bolshevik even. Reprisals
are in order, sir. Reichsführer
Heydrich was clear in his orders: 'No
quarter is to be given to the forces aligned with the international
Jewry and the traitors across the lands who lend them their support.'
If the shooter doesn't come forth he's a partisan, the lowest scum on
the battlefield, and those who harbor and shield him deserve to be
punished in his stead as a warning and example to all others. I say
we take every second man of fighting age and put him against a wall.
That should get the message across that traitors and Bolsheviks will
not be tolerated in the new Germany!” Reimann laughed as if he had
told a good joke.

Johan held his breath.
Surely they wouldn't do something like that, not to their own people,
not to the very farmers their propaganda had droned on and on about!?

The commander kept his
eyes on the mayor. The man was shivering by now, and not due to the
cold wind that blew across the village square. “I will count to
five, Herr
Bürgermeister3.
And you'll better have given up that sniper by then or you and your
picturesque little village will pay the price for your insolence.”
He drew his sidearm. “One.”

The mayor's eyes
bulged. “Please, I don't know who it-”

“Two.” The
commander pulled back the sled, chambering (sp?) a new round.

“We're good people
here in Abersfeld. Nobody-”

“Three.” He
unlocked the safety.

“Please, I beg you!
This is all a misunderstand-”

“Four.” The pistol
rose in his hand, his arm a straight line connecting with the mayor's
face.

“Five.” The back
of the mayor's skull exploded into a gory mist of bone splinters and
brain matter.

Someone within the
ranks retched. Johan gasped, too, fearing he would be overcome by
sickness. This was mad. This was wrong!
A few places farther into their column a grim looking Friedrich
Faller had to steady his younger brother. The youth stared at the
dead body of the mayor in wide-eyed shock.

“Untersturmführer
Reimann, you'll move clockwise through the village, starting with the
south-western part. You are to execute as an example every second man
above the age of sixteen and gather the remaining male population in
the village square. You'll continue doing so until you've found the
shooter. Do you understand?” Going by the SS officer's casual tone
he could just as well have spoken about the weather. “Let this be a
message and a warning to all of those who believe they can stand
against us without having to pay the price for their treachery.”

“Yes, sir!”
Reimann's face was a broad smile. He turned his mare around to face
the troops. “First three platoons, follow me. The rest of you:
cordon off the quarter. Someone runs you shoot them, got it?!” He
didn't wait for confirmation and pushed his horse back down the road.

As if in trance Johan
Maizcek fell in behind him alongside others. No, this wasn't
happening. He was still sleeping in that barn they had taken shelter
in last night. He was having nightmares. Maybe the food had been bad.
Yes, this was still a dream. A bad dream.

But the cold and the
sweat and the lump in his stomach felt real enough.

Reimann was a
wild-eyed bastard, but he was nothing if not methodical. They started
at the bottom of the street, the first house in the village. Heavy
boots brought down the front door. There was a commotion inside. Men
barked orders, women shrieked, a child began to cry. Somewhere
tableware shattered and pots clanged. Then half a dozen grim looking
soldiers pulled four men into the open. One bled from a cut on his
forehead.

“Are these all? Very
well. Line them up against the wall.” Reimann sounded almost bored.
He lazily pointed his riding crop at the second and the fourth in
line, a man in his sixties and a teenager Johan wouldn't have put as
a day older than fourteen. “Oberscharführer4,
select a detail of six men and have those two shot. Get the others to
the square. Do it quick, we don't have all day.”

Under the command of a
burly non-commissioned officer half a dozen men aimed their rifles
and fired. The older man and the teen immediately fell to the ground
like sacks of potatoes. Blood spurted from their wounds and stained
the white walls behind them. Inside the house a woman was wailing.
One of the two other men was cursing Johan and the other soldiers
until a rifle butt to the head silenced him. A quartet of troopers
escorted them back to the village's center.

Reimann appeared to be
almost amused by the interruption. Crimson streams slowly found their
way into the gutter. Lazily he gestured with his riding crop to carry
on.

The second house was
very much like the first one, as was the house after it.

At the fourth house
Johan found himself a member of the firing squad. It wasn't as if he
wanted to do this. But what choice did he have? Unless the whole
units refused to follow orders all his defiance would buy him was
either a severe lashing or spot in front of a firing squad. Or they
might hang him, slowly and painfully as a warning for others and
fodder for the crows. No, Johan Maizcek knew he was no hero. He had
no interest in a pointless martyr's death. It was better to be alive
than to be virtuous. He looked at the man in his crosshairs and
slowly shook his head. He wished he could have told him 'I'm sorry'.

“Fire!”

Johan pulled the
trigger. He was a good shot, hitting his victim squarely in the
chest. The man didn't have to suffer. The older levied soldier tried
to find some consolation in the thought, but it did little to wash
off the rank taste his actions left in his mouth. It was as if he was
selling his soul to the devil.

The next house a young
man tried to make a run for it. Reimann gleefully rode him down
before putting a couple of bullets into the writhing body beneath his
mare's feet. For their 'disobedience' the rest of the inhabitants
found themselves against their home's front wall. After the firing
squad had concluded its gruesome work grenades were lobbed into the
house, tearing the first and second floor to pieces. Somewhere a cook
fire spilled over and found ample food in the ruins. Before half the
tall farm buildings were checked thick black smoke rose from the
broken windows and open doors.

Nobody could wash
their hands clean of what was going on in Abersfeld. At some point
Johan also found himself numbly crashing down a door to drag innocent
people into the streets. It was a nice house, simple but clean with
tidy curtains and polished floors and inhabited by equally simple but
hard-working folk. It could just as well have been some family's home
in the Czech countryside. There were young women and girls in there
as well as men and boys. It was a big family, and it didn't come
quietly. Somewhere upstairs there was a tussle. They had to push out
the people at gunpoint. Seemingly unfazed by the whole intrusion the
old family matriarch simply stared after them from her place in the
armchair near the fireplace. More than anything else it was this
silent, stoic, accusing look she gave him that hit him deep inside.
And he knew that whatever she accused him off she now was in the
right. He could smell the bile in his own mouth. He'd have to get
drunk this evening, really drunk. And the worst thing was that he
knew it wouldn't do a thing.

The selection process
continued until they had searched all the houses in the first of the
four parts of the village. It had taken them barely half an hour.
Some five dozen people lay dead in the streets. The same number stood
huddled together in the village square under guard.

Reimann rode up to the
commander. It would have been comical if not for the grim
circumstances. He sat erect in his saddle, gave a snappish Nazi
salute and made his report.

A moment later they
marched off to cut off the north-western quarter of Abersfeld. War
brought out the worst in people, and had their work before started
sluggishly many of the men had already begun to settle into a kind of
routine by now. House after house they entered and checked, and Johan
found himself drawn into the numbing routine.

The front door to the
next one stood open. Empty flower boxes hung in front of a neat row
of narrow windows. The building's red-tiled roof seemed to go on
forever. The first soldier stormed inside. A second was to follow him
in but he recoiled when a panicked shriek erupted inside. The man
first to enter staggered back out again, his eyes wide and glazed
over, his hands shivering. Someone had driven a large cleaver into
his left shoulder. Blood bubbled from his mouth. A look of genuine
surprise flashed across his face. Then he collapsed into a pool of
his own blood.

Reimann was too
perplexed to give any orders, staring at the dead soldier like some
strange thing he had yet to figure out. These people weren't really
supposed to fight back!

But under the
impression of what had just happened to a quarter of their village
someone in Abersfeld had decided not to be herded to the
slaughterhouse like cattle.

Reimann's face turned
into a grimace of rage. “Burn that house down! Kill everyone
inside! Move!” he yelled.

One of the soldiers
lobbed a hand grenade through the front windows. In the sound of the
breaking glass another shattering window on the other side of the
village square went unnoticed until the deep echo of a large caliber
gun drowned everything else. A soldier near Reimann went down,
clutching his side that had been torn apart by buckshot. A second
shot thundered across the square, impacting impotently in a nearby
wall.

With everybody's
attention drawn to the shooter it was as if someone had opened a pair
of floodgates. The Nazis had enacted very strict firearms regulations
across the whole of the Reich after their ascent to power, but
especially on the countryside these restrictions found themselves
never fully enacted. It never was 'a gun in every house', but some
people just had a shotgun or some old rifle and nobody cared to rat
them out. It just wasn't important to anyone.

There were no
commands, no plans, no prepared ambushes here. There were only people
who instinctively had realized one thing: that they could stand
together - or die alone.

One of the men they
had herded into the village square – the one with the cut on the
forehead – lunged forward and began to wrestle with one of the
guards for his weapon. Another shot cracked over the houses. The hand
grenade in the house where one soldier had been mauled with a cleaver
exploded, spraying the vicinity with sharp glass shards. And suddenly
all hell had broken loose.

Women and children
were running into the streets and away from the soldiers. Shots raced
over the SS units' heads. They were few in number but came from
different directions. And the 'prisoners' rolled over their guards
like an avalanche, beating them down and taking their weapons before
the totally surprised troopers could react. It was as if they
couldn't belief that their own acts were finally met by an explosion
of violence.

The almost clinical
killing the SS company had committed earlier descended into a mad
melee. Villagers stormed from their houses, throwing themselves at
them with knives and axes and farm instruments. One man went down
with a pitchfork in his belly. Another one was pinned to the ground
while a crazy-eyed villager bashed his brains in with a cobblestone
before a rifle shot blew half his head off.

Reinmann blindly
lashed out with his riding crop. “Kill them all! Kill all the
traitors! KILL THEM ALL!”

The Hauptsturmführer
had drawn his saber, keeping it at the ready while he methodically
aimed and fired his Luger. Those who weren't fighting for their dear
lives in close combat fired blinldy into the crowd, into the houses
and into those that emerged from them.

Johan saw a young
mother fall to the ground as a bullet ripped through her newborn
child and her own chest. But he didn't have the time to feel anything
as a man swinging an ax appeared from the fog of battle. More by luck
than skill he avoided the attacker's first swing. He stumbled back,
but before he could find his footing again the man was on him,
bringing the ax down. With all his strength Johan blocked the blow
with his rifle. His arms hurt like hell, but the carbine held off the
ax's shaft. It's blade hovered a millimeter above his face. Roaring,
the villager yanked his ax back and pulled the rifle with him, a
triumphant smile on his face. Johan rolled himself to the side, the
fear and adrenaline racing through his bloodstream giving him more
strength and agility than he had ever felt before. Almost like a cat
he brought himself back to his feet. He didn't carry a sidearm but he
still had his bayonet. But against the wood-chipping whirlwind a foot
long pointy piece of steel still put him in a disadvantageous
position. He fell back, sidestepped, fell back again. He could feel
the air draft of the other man's blows on his face. Crisp heat hit
him from behind like a club and a look of triumph grew on the ax
swinging villager's face.

Johan found himself
cornered – and hot flames licked greedily from windows that had
turned to furnaces at the rest of the half-timbered house.

“Gotcha, ya
bastard!” the villager hurled himself at Johan. Desperate, Johan
threw himself into the man. A sharp pain raced through his body as
something hard hit his shoulder but he thrust the long blade in his
hands forward. It found the villager's belly. The man grunted as he
buried Johan under his own weight, but he was far from dead yet. With
frightening strength he began to push the handle of his ax against
Johan's throat. Panicked, the soldier hammered the bayonet into the
man's belly again and again, to no avail. His vision began to blacken
on the periphery, the grip on his blade loosened.

He was about to lose
consciousness - and his life – when the body on him suddenly
slackened, then rolled to the side, the look in the man's eyes empty
and lifeless. Another soldier stood above him and pulled back his
rifle. Blood covered the long bayonet atop of it. The two men just
looked at one another with terror in their eyes before Johan's savior
stumbled away, his face blank. A moment later he was lost in the
fray.

If this wasn't hell it
sure was close to it, a sardonic thought made its way through Johan's
numb neural pathways. Thick black smoke hung over Abersfeld with a
dozen or more houses on fire. People yelled and moaned and snarled
everywhere, and into the cacophony of the raging fires and men the
sounds of gunfire and the staccato of a machine gun entered. Back up
at the church someone simply had begun to fire an MG 34 machine gun
into the crowd, regardless of friend or foe. Reimann was galloping
through the fray, mad-eyed, his pistol blazing and his riding crop
slashing as if he were an eighteenth century dragoon. Even through
all the tumult Johan could hear his wild laughter. Despite the heat
he felt a cold shiver run through his bones. This was the type of man
he was forced to follow. This was the type of work he was forced to
do. He dry-heaved and slowly picked up his rifle again.

Up ahead the bear-like
Friedrich Faller cowered over his younger brother, shielding the
teenager with his mass and his own rifle. A boy hardly older than his
brother Hermann stormed at him with a wordless battle cry, a
pitchfork in his hand. The older Sudetengerman was reloading his
Mauser carbine. Without thinking Johan brought his own weapon up and
shot the boy. The 7.92mm round hit the attacker like a steam hammer
and he went under in the wave of bodies that still fought on.

But the tide war
turning, and the better armed soldiers were clearing the “enemy's”
ranks. There was fire and blood everywhere. Johan leaned back against
a nearby wall and slowly sunk to the ground. He wanted to cry but no
tears came. Instead he just stared numbly through the carnage. If
this wasn't hell, hell itself had nothing worse to offer.